


In Extremis

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: A Bit Not Good, Alternate Universe, Asylum, Hallucinations, Insane Castiel, M/M, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 15:18:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is a patient in a mental asylum, entirely convinced of a life where he is an angel and he is protected by two hunters under the names of Sam and Dean Winchester. He refuses to give up on this alternate fantasy, nearly to the point of constant psychotic fits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Extremis

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Danvers State](https://archiveofourown.org/works/727826) by [ronans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronans/pseuds/ronans). 



> So I was feeling like I wanted something twisted after reading a considerable amount of... odd... 'fictions in the Supernatual fandom (I slow clap this fandom for literally having EVERY KIND of fanfiction known to man or angel). Also, I'm freezing, so I took my spite for the weather out on my Google Drive account and made this first chapter. Whoops.  
> Muse-ic is Howl by Florence and the Machine.  
> Eh, I dunno if I can say 'enjoy!' to this one...  
> -DigiRez

“He’s staring at the wall again.”

Jane Stanton ran her hands down the planes of her cheeks a weary crease already forming between her eyebrows. It had been a long day, a long week, and yet there were still papers on her desk that needed reading, annotating, signing, and organizing- not to mention the half-a-hundred documents on her laptop that needed  printing and filing.

The nurse at the doorway tucked a piece of frizzy scarlet hair behind her ear, sharing a sympathetic look with the doctor.

“Give me a moment, O’Hara. Is he talking? Dreaming?”

The nurse thrummed her fingers against the doorframe of Stanton’s office, glancing about the room and sucking in a deep breath. This was going to be bad, Stanton was sure of it.

“He’s talking. But something’s changed.”

Stanton looked up from her desk, her white jacket halfway pulled around her, hair a coiled mess at the nape of her neck, barely held back by an elastic.

“Why? O’Hara, what’s he doing?”

O’Hara bit her lip doggedly.

“He keeps saying the name ‘Gabriel’.”

* * *

 

The walls were whitewashed and bleak, uniformly the same as the ones flanking it, and the ones flanking those, and so on. There was a single bench, nailed down to the white tile floor, and a thin mattress on a rickety metal frame in the corner. After the first seven visits from the resident psychiatrist, they’d finally let him have a sheet of paper and a pencil. The result of such an experiment was pinned firmly and absolutely to the wall just above the mattress. Not a single inch of white was left on the paper, as he had mercilessly taken the pencil to it.

The shading was taut, spilled everywhere on the page like oil, but there were spaces of a light grey, a pale silver, and those spaces formed a face, two faces, and then expressions. It seemed that the longer you looked at the page, the more detail became apparent. And after staring at his final product for ten minutes, Jane Stanton drew in a breath, stricken, and had rushed back to his room.

He had identified them, as Sam and Dean.

There were orderlies on either side of his door now, standing with wide, terrified eyes at the approaching doctor. From inside, Stanton could hear the muffled, tenor roar of Castiel’s screams.

“Has anyone given him sedative?” Stanton demanded as she withdrew his room’s key from her coat’s pocket. One of the orderlies flinched,

“That’s the problem- we already have, and he’s still going on!”

“ _Dammit_.” Stanton hissed, waiting until his screaming broke, and it turned into low, quiet whimpering.

She handed the key to one of the orderlies, made sure her hair was up out of reach, and slipped into Castiel’s room.

He lied on the bench, legs curled up close to him, looking away from her.

“Please no more. I’ll be good, brother, I promise. Just stop-”

“Castiel?” Stanton says quietly over his babbling. His shoulders tense, but otherwise he doesn’t move. The doctor pulls around the collapsible chair from the corner, sitting down and folding her hands in her lap.

“No, Gabriel, you _cannot!_ ” Castiel hisses, as if in reply to some unheard comment, “At least attempt some restraint!”

“Castiel, who are you talking to?” Stanton tried gently. Castiel sat up and whipped about to face her. There was a low fury building in his glacier blue eyes, and he arrested her with a contemptuous glare.

“I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t interrupt, Doctor Stanton.”

“Who’s here besides us, Castiel? Is Dean here?”

Castiel snorted, clasping his hands together.

“Of course he isn’t- he went out hunting hours ago with Sam. They left me here to deal with the sedatives the orderlies injected me with- Gabriel, would you please be quiet!”

Doctor Stanton furrowed her brow, leaning forward.

“Who is Gabriel, Castiel? When did he start visiting you?”

Castiel whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut like vices, clutching his shock of dark hair and rocking gently back and forth.

“Gabriel, please, would you just go? Michael was right; you’re completely insufferable.”

Stanton crossed her forearms over her knees, staring at Castiel’s prone form with intensity.

“Castiel, would you talk to me? It’s alright, you’re safe in here, you know that. All you need to do is tell me who Gabriel and Michael are.”

Castiel’s rocking subsided after a few minutes, and his fingers flexed around his hair as if he were just getting feeling back into them.

“They are my brothers.”

Stanton frowned, “Castiel, you don’t have any brothers. You were born an only child.”

He glowered at her fiercely, eyes a dark stormy slate color. There was something sinister about how his jaw locked resolutely.

“That is _not_ true.”

Jane had worked at this institution for nearly a decade, but there was not one patient she had known who was as adamant about their hallucinations as Castiel was. He treated them as real, flesh-and-blood beings who had their own schedules and kept him company while he was enclosed at the asylum. For him, it was obvious that they existed, and any notion otherwise could have the power to send him off over the edge into one of his frenzies. He had proved to be one of the more mercurial patients in the institute early on.

“Castiel,” Stanton says softly, “How long has Gabriel been visiting you?”

The ferocity edged out of Castiel’s expression, but he was still suspect.

“He is a messenger, so he’s away often. He only has time to see me every once and again, but as always he can prove to be an irritating prick.”

Stanton raised her eyebrows as Castiel looked pointedly at a certain spot to his right.

“And Michael?”

Castiel’s expression darkened.

“Michael doesn’t visit. Ever.”

He paused, tipping his head slightly. Then a quiet, delighted grin broke out on his face, brightening his eyes and making the corners of his cheeks crinkle. Stanton leaned towards him, taken aback by his sudden change in mood.

“Castiel, what is Gabriel saying to you?”

“ _Quiet!_ ” Castiel snaps, glaring at her. He swivels on his bench, lying back down facing away from the doctor, and murmurs quietly,

“Hello, Dean.”

Stanton sighs, cradling her temples with her hands, and rises. She leaves Castiel to his delusional whispering, speaking to his hunter that only he could see, could touch, could understand.

“Don’t leave me with Gabriel again, you know how badly that unfolds.”

There was silence. Stanton paused at the door, at least a bit interested with Castiel’s interaction with Dean on the topic of the new Gabriel hallucination.

“No, Dean, I didn’t tell her anything.” Castiel sighs.

 _Did you say anything about your brothers, Cas?_ Dean asks, arms folded. Sam sits on the bed, equally concerned, with his hands clasped between his knees. But he wouldn’t talk- he never talks.

“I already told you, no!”

Stanton glances at him in pity, thinking briefly of the small mountain range of papers on her desk waiting to be dealt with. She exits, locking the solid metal door, and prepares for another report on Castiel Novak’s delusional fantasies.

 _Cas, are you lying to me?_ Dean asks quietly, crouching to come to eye level with the dark-haired angel. Castiel makes a tiny pitiful sound, reaching out a hand to caress Dean’s stubble-lined cheek.

“No, no, I would never. Dean, you know I would never lie to you.” He says feverishly, under his breath, trying to quell the monster he knows is approaching. Sam gets up slowly, eyes dark brown and fixed entirely on Castiel’s weak form.

_We can’t let them know, Cas, you know that, right? They’ll hurt us._

“Dean, please don’t.” Castiel whispers brokenly, a manic fear building inside his chest.

 _Sammy and I are gonna make it better, okay, angel? We’ll make it all go away_. Dean soothes, brushing a hand over Castiel’s mess of dark hair.

“Stop, no, don’t-”

The orderlies outside Castiel’s room wince when the agonized screaming begins again.

**Author's Note:**

> I told you so.


End file.
